For Everything A Reason
by Rhadeya
Summary: The team investigate two seemingly unrelated cases. Evidence at both leads them to suspect a link... but they're not prepared for the horrific truths they discover... *Please R&R*
1. Andi's Abduction

Disclaimer: The characters and lab of CSI are owned by people smarter and more talented than me. I'm doing this for fun, not for any money, so please don't sue me :) 

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A deep red tinted the clouds as the sun set on another day in Las Vegas, making the sky appear to be covered in blood. Crouched in the bushes lining Nightingale Street, a man dressed in black watched the sky thoughtfully. Hidden from unwanted attention, he glanced at his watch and smiled, a silent shadow in the gathering darkness he waited for his quarry to arrive home.

~~~~~~~

Shaking her head in exhaustion, Andi Freeman walked slowly to her car, the lights of the office behind her illuminating her path. Darkness was just beginning to creep over the city, the neon lights of the casinos along the strip calling the addicts in for their next fix. Snorting slightly at the people heading off to squander their hard earned cash, she drove past them and headed home. Night had descended fully by the time she had travelled the 10 miles to her home in the Vegas suburbs. Pulling onto her driveway, she turned off the engine of her SUV and hauled herself out of the vehicle, her hand shaking as she locked it and beeped the alarm. Slipping her bag onto her shoulder, she trudged up the drive towards the house, slightly puzzled when her security light didn't come on. 

"Damn bulb must have blown again," she muttered to herself, sliding the key into the lock. Before she had a chance to get the door open, a hand covered her mouth, pressing a sickly sweet smelling damp cloth to her face. Tired as she was, she tried to fight off her attacker, attempting to drive her elbow backwards, into his stomach. Screaming into the cloth in the vain hope that someone might hear her, the chloroform kicked in and she slumped against the stranger, the oblivion rising up and claiming her, dragging her into darkness. 

~~~~~~~

Screeching to a halt in the parking lot, Nick Stokes jumped out of his Tahoe and rushed into the Las Vegas Crime Lab, well aware that he was late for work. Racing down the halls, he arrived at the break room and slipped inside, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. Grissom looked at him over the top of his glasses, the older man's expression unreadable. Quickly taking a seat, Nick waited for the inevitable remark about his time keeping. When it didn't come, he looked at his boss closely. _"Damn! Must be in more trouble than I thought."_

"As I was saying, Catherine, you've got a 419 at the Orpheus. Woman found dead in the ladies rest room," Grissom continued, his tone telling Nick that the boss was less than pleased. "Take Warrick with you. Sara, you're with me on a 427. Woman kidnapped outside her own home. Neighbour heard a car pull away at high speed, but the victim's car is on her driveway and her keys were in the front door."

"Ooo, kidnap. Always a rush," Sara replied, her voice full of excitement.

"Nick, you've got a 419. Body found stuffed in a dumpster on Glenmont Street."

"Cool," the youngest CSI replied calmly, rising to his feet and heading for the door.

"Nick, take Greg with you. He could do with a bit of field experience," Gil called over his shoulder, catching the disgusted look on his team member's face and hiding his smile. He turned back to his own task as his team filed out, handing the file on their kidnap case over to his colleague. _"Serves you right for being late Nick,"_ he thought as he got to his feet and followed them from the room.

  
"Yo, Greg! You're with me tonight," Nick called as he passed the DNA lab, fighting to keep a straight face at the looks of relief on the faces of the other lab techs. "Come on!"

"Right behind ya man," the spiky haired lab tech called back, slipping out of his lab coat and grabbing his dark blue padded jacket. The pair headed towards the parking lot and as they passed the print lab, Nick glanced inside, seeing Jaqui mouth the words thank you. Hiding his smile, the level 3 CSI wondered how Greg would cope with his first DB…


	2. Dumpster DB

Disclaimer: CSI characters etc are owned by people smarter and more talented than me. I'm doing this for love, not for money, so please don't sue me :)

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**# 2 - Dumpster DB**

The hiss of water under the tyres of his Tahoe made Nick curse silently, and he increased the pressure on the gas pedal. The rain would wash away any physical evidence around the dumpster, and inside it if the PD officer hadn't thought to close the lid when the rain started. Greg noticed the speed increase but remained silent, experienced enough to know they were going to have trouble getting any uncontaminated evidence from their crime scene. The Tahoe slid slightly as Nick turned into the car park of the convenience store and braked hard. Ignoring the look Greg shot him, the CSI climbed out of his vehicle and crossed to the line of dumpsters at the back of the store. He breathed a small sigh of relief as he saw the lids were all closed, the young PD officer standing beside the one at the far end of the group. Sending a small prayer of thanks to whichever God might be listening, he realised the rain had stopped.

"Hey Nick," the policeman greeted them, looking at Greg curiously for a moment.

"Hey Dan. So, what we got?" he replied, recognising the cop from a previous case he had been involved with.

"Caucasian female. No idea how long she's been dead, but it looks like it might have been a while. I closed the lid of the dumpster as soon as it started raining."

"Good thinkin. This is Greg," he indicated the young lab tech. "Let's have a look shall we?" He glanced at Greg as he pair approached the dumpster, noting with more than a little respect that the younger man didn't even flinch as Nick lifted the lid and they peered inside. "Oh man, sometimes I hate this job," he murmured softly. Half buried in trash lay the body of a young woman, her face partially covered by a thick mane of dark hair. She wore a simple, sleeveless white dress and her feet were bare. A large dark stain stood out against the fabric just above her left breast, the thin cotton torn, indicating a knife wound. Slipping on a pair of latex gloves, Nick began the initial examination of the scene.

"Greg, take notes. Victim is Caucasian female, approx. 25-30 years of age. She's dressed in a simple white dress, with no markings. Possibly made by the killer for this purpose. Single stab wound to the upper chest. Probably the cause of death, though we'll have to wait for the autopsy to be sure. Lack of blood on the trash around the body suggests she was killed somewhere else and then dumped here." He reached in and gently brushed the hair from the woman's face. "Bruising to the face, neck, arms and legs suggests possible torture." Stepping away from the dumpster, he walked the few paces to his kit and opened the case, taking out a handful of pieces of tape, a pair of tweezers and several small evidence bags. Grabbing his camera from the side pocket of the bag, he returned to the body. He took several pictures from different angles, focusing on the bloodstain and the bruising, plus the positioning of the body. Hanging the camera around his neck, he took one of the tape strips from his pocket. Leaning into the dumpster, he peeled away the plastic backing of the tape strip and pressed it to the woman's right shoulder. Lifting it away carefully he sealed it, trapping two blonde hairs inside, and placed it into the top pocket of his jacket.

"Guess you'll be needin DNA from them then?" Greg nodded towards the evidence in Nick's pocket, trying to hide his disappointment.

"Yeah but we can get someone else to run it. I'm gonna need your help to process the clothing and the rest of the scene. Plus, we need to try an find out who this poor woman is."

"Oh, OK then."

"Ya may regret it before the night's out," Nick warned, turning back to the corpse. "Let's get her outta there."

~~~~~~

A small sigh escaped his lips as he looked through the one-way glass at his two guests. A slight chill ran down his spine as the newest one, Andi, looked up at the mirror, seeming to look directly at him. He was going to enjoy her, she had a fiery spirit that he found compelling, and it turned him on. The other one was getting a little boring, she had stopped fighting him now, stopped screaming when he took her. He had already killed three of them, terminating them when they ceased to satisfy his needs.

"No, you'll do just fine, pretty," he murmured, watching Andi take stock of her current surroundings. Running a hand through his short blonde hair, he turned away from the glass and left the tiny observation room. Heading towards the basement stairs, he went to get the next body ready for disposal.  



	3. Ally

**_Disclaimer:_**_ Do not now, nor have I ever owned anything to do with CSI. Only thing I do own are the original characters, cases etc. These are not to be used without my permission. I do this for love, not money, so please don't sue; make me write scripts as punishment instead lol _

_**Author's Notes:** OK, been a while since I worked with this fic. Please bear with me if I'm not fully up to date with the current series, it's only just started over here lol  
Not sure where I'm going with this one yet, guess I'll see where my muse takes me..._

_Been asked for a longer chapter, so here it is :-)_

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**#3 – Ally**

Droplets of rain splashed against the windscreen as Grissom and Sara headed over to their crime scene. Turning into Nightingale Street, Gil slowed their speed and pulled in behind the police cruiser parked to one side of the road. As he slowly climbed out of the vehicle, he watched heads turn in their direction; curious neighbours wanting to know what was happening on their quiet street. Gil walked up the short path to the front door, stopping a few feet from Catherine, who stood at the base of the steps to the porch. 

"What have you got?" He followed her line of sight when she didn't answer and saw what had drawn her attention. The bulb of the porch light was broken, small slivers of glass littering the wooden porch beneath it.

"Bulb was broken, smashed. I'll lay bets that was deliberate."

"Looks like it. Without the light, this house and the path are pretty dark. Perfect cover for someone laying in wait for their victim." Kneeling down, the graveyard supervisor slipped on a pair of latex gloves and collected samples of the glass as evidence.

"So you thinking maybe our victim and her kidnapper knew each other?" 

"I don't think so. I think the kidnapper almost certainly knew his victim, but I don't think she knew him."

"How do you know?" Curious, she followed him as he stood up and moved up onto the porch.

"Look here," he told her, pointing to the small black marks on the polished wood. "These look like scuff marks, probably made when the kidnapper grabbed Ms. Freeman from behind and incapacitated her. I'm guessing she struggled with her attacker, which means she probably didn't know him."

"Oh?"

"If you know someone, you'd come up to them openly, not lay in wait for them, hidden from sight."

"Yeah, offer to go for a drink and then disappear somewhere on route right? If our vic lived alone, first anyone would know was when she didn't show up for work on Monday..."

"And by then it would be too late to follow the trail." Gil concluded for her, both scientists following the same line of reasoning.

"So he knew her but she didn't know him? You think he stalked her?" As she spoke, Catherine scraped small samples of the material from the porch. A glint of liquid caught her attention and she looked to her left, spotting a single droplet of clear liquid on the polished wood of the porch. Taking a swab from her kit, she collected a sample of the unknown substance, sealing ready to pass to trace when they got back to the lab.

"Probably."

"Do we know anything else about the victim?" Taking the camera from her pack, she snapped a couple of shots of the fluid and scuff marks before glancing at Captain Brass.

"Andi Freeman, 27 years old, works for a law firm about 10 miles from here. Drives the same route to and from work every day. Neighbours," he told them, waving his hand towards the worried faces on the other side of the police tape. "say she keeps pretty much to herself, not many visitors. Lives alone, no recent boyfriend that they know of. Work colleagues say she's a bright, bubbly woman. No problems at work and, as far as they knew, none outside work either."

"So an ordinary woman, with an ordinary life. Why her?" Cath's curiosity was piqued.

"I don't know, but I'm sure we'll find out." Breathing a small sigh, Gil turned his attention back to the evidence around them, putting his faith in its ability to tell them the story of Ms Freeman's disappearance.

~~~~~~

"Well, our vic is no longer a Jane Doe. Her name is Ally Farmer." Nick strode into the DNA lab, surprising Greg, who was busy drooling over yet another pretty girl in a teen magazine. Nick hid his amusement as the lab tech stashed the evidence of his little obsession, handing the younger man the case file he carried.

"So AFFIS found a match to our vic then?"

"Yeah, turns out she was a cop. Officer Ally Jane Farmer, 27 years old. Signed off on medical grounds after she got shot in the line of duty. She was due back to work yesterday. Brass said they sent a unit to her house when she didn't show up for duty, but the officer found no sign of her. They left messages on her machine but no-one has seen her for several weeks. Everyone thought she'd gone to see her mom in Canada."

"And no-one thought to investigate?"

"Apparently they called her mom's house and that's when they found out her parents hadn't seen her for months. There's a missing persons report filed."

"I guess we go check out her house then huh?" The younger man looked more than a little excited at the prospect of getting away from his 'normal' job.

"Yeah. Got the address from Brass. She lived at 106 Nightwish Street. Get yer coat, we're going for a ride." Slipping on his own coat, Nick walked towards the car park, ignoring the uneasy feeling that was beginning to form in his gut.

  
  
Nick stopped his Tahoe in front of Ally Farmer's house and turned off the engine. Greg hopped out of the vehicle but the CSI 3 made no move to join him. His gaze was fixed on the empty house, the feeling of unease growing with each passing second. Something felt wrong, he just couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was. Following Greg, he slipped under the police tape and carefully studied the scene in front of him. The lab tech knew enough to let the more experienced CSI lead the way, photographing the things Nick pointed out. Samples of broken glass were collected from the grass beside the porch steps; photographs were taken of the broken bulb. The two men searched inside the house, and around its perimeter, but knew the evidence they collected might not be enough to help them solve the case, given the age of the crime scene.

"Come on Grego, lets get this stuff back to the lab," Nick said, heading back towards their vehicle. As the Tahoe pulled out of Nightwish Street, the CSI suppressed the feeling of unease he still felt.

*********  
_OK, that asks more questions than it answers doesn't it? LOL  
  
Go one, hit that little review button... you know you want to ;-)_


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